Into the Void
by inkslinger.x
Summary: Mrs. Crouch wants nothing more than an ending.


**Into the Void**

"He's not coming."

She knew.

"Perhaps just a moment longer—your father is a very busy man," she said reassuringly, in a bright tone; it contrasted the angry, gray sky outside perfectly. The petite woman gripped the dining room drapes with unnecessary tautness, as she peered out the window, at the darkening neighborhood. With her other hand, her left, she tugged at the pearl necklace around her neck, so brusquely the pearls on the chain were fit to burst. Nevertheless, despite these mannerisms, she kept her voice pleasant and optimistic, as if her son wouldn't notice such glaringly blatant anxieties.

"He's not coming," repeated her son for a second time. He was seated at the dinner table, leaning backward in his chair, legs crossed and on the table. He glared at his mother's back with an unjustifiable amount of contempt, watching her tug at her pearl necklace. "He's not coming," he said for a third time, almost in a shout. "I'm leaving."

Alarmed, Mrs. Crouch let go of the drapes and turned around. "That won't be necessary, Barty!" she said desperately. She attempted a warm and reassuring smile, but failed quite miserably. "We could have dinner together; we are _still_ a family without your father."

Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Jr., of age nineteen, rose abruptly from his chair, causing his mother to flinch. His thin, naturally beady eyes narrowed as he glared at her, resentment and intense rage leaking from his seams. His face was pale and stained with stubble; he hadn't bothered to shave in days. He said nothing else to her, pushing any chairs in his path toward the doorway dismissively aside; with each push to a chair, she flinched as it fell to the raspberry carpet.

"Barty," she croaked finally. He had reached the doorway and stopped. "Barty," she said again, tearfully. "Don't go."

He stood in the doorway for a long moment, lingering. She took his silence as compliance; he was a troubled teen in troubled times. He didn't know any better. He would learn life's lessons and pull his own crumbled life together—she was sure of this. She watched with shining eyes as he lingered in the doorway. He would join her.

He didn't. He didn't turn to give her an explanation, nor did he even give her a glance over his shoulder. He didn't pause once his legs got going, in a fast-paced stride down the entrance hall of the home, and to the front door. The door slammed; the walls shook. He was gone.

She whimpered, heartbroken. Tears itched and her throat burned; unmistakably, she couldn't deny she was dying. Bits and pieces of her were slowly rotting, grouping together and attacking her immune system. She couldn't remember what joy and happiness felt like—memories of such emotions felt fake and disillusioned. Perhaps they were fake, a simple figment of her hopeless imagination. These days were full of much disorder and little sense; she'd lost her sensibility long ago, sometime when she'd lost her will to live.

And, now all there was to do was wait to die—to wait _patient_, to bite her tongue in the meantime until she was into her grave. She was convinced there would be nothing better. Life in the Crouch household was figuratively nonexistent. Literally, yes, but they were all wrecked inside. She'd be kidding herself if she even tried and pretend they weren't a trio of some astoundingly messed up people.

She plopped down in her dinner chair, and waited. By now, night had fallen over the city, leaving the view outside of the window as nothing but a black wall, with distant squares of lights; those were the neighbors windows, through which life lived. The dinner waiting and ready on the table was cold. It had been there for well over an hour, waiting to be eaten. The candles that had once been tall and that rested on the table beside the dishes of dinner were now shortening stubs of wax and fading flames.

Mrs. Crouch spent a good hour and a half longer there, alone, waiting.

* * *

Surely, she'd die. It was simply not healthy for a heart to beat this fast—_painfully_ so. Its pounding was merciless, thumping against her chest so hard she was sure she'd bruise; so loudly she was sure the two gentlemen seated next to her would hear. It continued on, pumping blood against her wishes. If it'd simply stop it's thumping she'd be happy and at peace; dead, obviously. Each word that echoed throughout the room and reached her ears caused another sharp punch to the chest. She wondered if there was such a thing as a defense.

She wrung her hands, wisps of hair falling from underneath her beret. She'd brushed her hair ages ago in the morning during sunrise. Standing in front of her bedroom's vanity mirror she'd calmly brushed her graying black hair, capping it with a tasteful beret that accentuated her modest skirt and blouse perfectly. Even in times of distress she was cautiously prim and proper about dressing.

The man sitting next to her kept throwing her glances. He could feel her shaking and quivering. She had reason to be scared, considering the circumstances. He'd read all about her and her husband and her son in the _Daily Prophet_. He knew all about the ironic situation Mr. Crouch and she were in. It was a shame she was involved. The father was mad and the son madder; she seemed almost innocent.

With thirteen short words, one complete sentence, she lost the very last piece of the will for life that resided in her. The will was its last and it was gone. There were other words afterwards, gasps and applause; gossip too. She didn't take in a single word. She had willed herself to go deaf after, "the Wizengamot hereby sentences Bartemius Crouch Jr. to a life sentence in Azkaban".

She watched, completely still in her seat on the bench, as they removed the straps from her son's chair in the center of the courtroom, and then hauled him away. He looked insanely joyous as he was taken away, the most joy she'd seen in his eyes since his childhood. He disappeared through the side exit and was gone from her line of vision for what she was sure would be a good long time.

Quietly, she rose from her seat on the bench and left the courtroom. The roomful of attendants hadn't grown tired of their applause and cheers, some pointing as she passed on her way to the door. She skirted past them all, head hung low, eyes wide and hands shaking.

The outside courtroom was quiet, the faint sound of the applause from inside reaching the corridor. There, she found her husband. He had escaped from the courtroom with little notice, to stand out in the hall all alone. He looked up at the sound of the courtroom door coming to a close. He was surprised to see her.

"It's over and done," he told her firmly. His tone was screaming of sickening satisfaction and triumph. At any costs, he wanted to prevail over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Death Eaters—costs that included his only son. Nonetheless, in Crouch Senior's eye, the day was a success; another win for the Ministry of Magic!

She couldn't understand him. Such confusion led her to question if she ever had. In response, she stood there with her arms at her side, more disturbed than words or actions could ever convey. There was nothing left to do but die. Nothing else did the situation justice.

"Let's go home," her husband suggested, in his best efforts of a comforting voice. He approached her, outstretching his arms to pull her to him, but she took two quick steps back, out of his reach. His forehead wrinkled with lines of bemusement. He couldn't understand how she could possibly be upset with him, when _their son_ was the one that had betrayed them. "I don't understand you, Edna," he said flatly and frankly. "If you won't come with, I'll go without you."

He waited for her reply, one that never came. She remained silent, and together they listened to the continuous rounds of applause and bouts of cheers from the courtroom.

* * *

"You don't want to do this. It's a mistake. It's mental. I refuse to let you."

The wind whistled. The wind was particularly violent on that Sunday, blowing into trees and making them sway, pushing against anything mobile, sending it back a step or two.

Mr. and Mrs. Crouch stood in the midst of an empty cemetery on that windy Sunday, cloaks tight around them. They stood before a gravestone already inscribed with just only the name, 'Bartemius Crouch Junior'; the rest would be added on a bit later, after his death. The large six-foot hole was empty inside, waiting for a corpse to occupy it.

"You're not," Mr. Crouch said uneasily. "Edna, _please _listen to reason!"

His words were almost completely drowned by the loud wind. Mrs. Crouch's eyes never left the six-foot deep bed, even when she replied.

"I never ask you for anything, Barty; I want this more than anything," she said tonelessly. She'd long ago lost the peachy, pleasant tone to her voice. She looked a complete wreck, with no color to her face and her hair a knotted mess; the wind tousling** it** only deepened the tangles. "I'm as good as dead."

"No, you're not," he pleaded. "That's preposterous—you are perfectly fine!"

She had never heard such an untrue sentence in her life.

"Dear, please," he continued, reaching for her; she refused him, moving from his grasp. "You are hopelessly stuck on what happened to him. He is gone! He made his choice; let me help you make yours."

Gradually, as the wind's picked up even more speed, it began to drizzle. Neither moved from where they stood by the grave. He watched her as she stared into the dark, earthy bed.

"I've already made mine, Barty."

* * *

Her son was free from Hell, and that was all that was important.

The sacrifice of her body, mind and soul, her life, paled in comparison. She simply did not matter anymore, and she was more than fine with finally having an end. She'd wasted away painfully slowly; the day was creeping around the corner and she couldn't have been happier.

It was the first real pinch of happiness she'd experienced in years.

She smiled madly, leaning her head back and resting it against the grimy wall. The wait was so close to being over she swore she could taste it right along with the stale bread and dirty water, on her tongue. She savored its delectable flavor; the taste filling her better than any bread crumbs could.

The cell was dark. The entire prison was quiet. The prisoners had accepted their situation and had long since given up making sound. Each damned soul was off in their own cell, which _was_ their world—too doomed and weary to think of anyone else but themselves.

Mr. Crouch hadn't complied to her wishes easily; he didn't want to let go of his wife; he didn't want a thing to do with his son. It was wrong in every single definition of the word, to him, but he had eventually gone along once he realized his wife was going to die anyway. She was too far gone, too wasted.

The moment it happened she felt it coming. The smile wasn't gone from her face, but her eyes were closed.

The infamous Barty Crouch Jr. was found hours later, dead in his cell.

**FIN**


End file.
